Fight Club and Buddhism
This is a paper I did in university in 2003. I presented it at the University of Lethbridge at the Religious Studies Conference.
The Violent Vehicle:
Fight Club as a Buddhist
Path to Enlightenment
4/1/2003
[1]
Besides painfully obvious utterances by Edward Norton’s character, such as “I
was the Zen master”[i]
and his haiku writing, the movie Fight Club has many Buddhist parallels. Edward Norton’s character is unnamed (hinting
at Anatman) and will be referred to
as ‘Jack’. His life loosely parallels
the Life of the Buddha, as he begins to realize that there is something oddly
not right about existence (Dukkha),
he sets forth on a journey to learn how to quench his discomfort. On this journey he must deal with the ideas
of self, suffering, and possible cures, which would allow him to exist apart
from the inner turmoil he feels. The
movie is an exploration of the search for a cure and a final nirvana.
[2] ‘Jack’ lives in a condo where he “had it
all”[ii]. In his palace, much like Prince Siddhartha,
he is free from the troubles of other people with his hip furniture, novelty
dishware, and catalogues that provide him with the ability to obtain whatever
was needed to occupy his worldly wants.
However, he begins to suffer from insomnia, a sign that something is not
quite right. He then ventures outside
the doors of his palace in search of truth, entering into the world of the
decaying, suffering, and dying. He
experiences sights, which open his eyes to the bigger world. Death due to car
wrecks is an everyday sight for him as he has to write accident reports for his
job, but he begins to truly encounter the suffering while attending support
groups for incest survivors, Tuberculosis sufferers, and meetings for
individuals host to cancer or parasites. Throughout his time experiencing the
world of pain, flashes of Tyler Durden appear on the screen, symbolizing the
possibility of a cure, the deeper truth, and the birth of the person who is
free of trouble he would like to become.
[3] As well as searching for a cure to heal his
mysterious ailment, he is also searching to understand the self, evident by the
fact that he chooses a different name at each group he attends, never actually
revealing a universal name to be known by throughout the entire movie. While attending these meetings he begins to
cry, symbolizing his understanding that the world is suffering (the First Noble
Truth). As he performs this meditational
crying he lets go of the idea that existence is fine the way it is and comes to
find some comfort in the realization that everyone suffers. This enables him to
sleep again, knowing he has made a step closer to understanding reality. In searching he also begins to experiment
with different meditations, one of which allows him to escape into a cave away
from the world with his “power animal”[iii].
[4] His contentment is disturbed by the
presence of Marla Singer, an obvious faker, at his support group meetings. She is symbolic of the profane self catching
up to him. She is his ordinary,
suffering self that he was and is, but rejects and is perpetually trying to
escape. Marla is the reason he can not
sleep, and it is what she represents in himself that he wishes to be rid
of. She smokes during the Tuberculosis
meetings and attends the testicular cancer group; “her lie reflected [his] lie”[iv]. He can no longer sleep,
and she has invaded his meditations by becoming his “power animal”. He now realizes that these support groups,
symbolic of the realization that life is suffering and unsatisfactory, are not
enough. He must find a cure. Marla
forces him to intensify his search in order to escape what she represents. During this time his apartment is blown up
(by him), which is symbolic of Siddhartha’s leaving the palace to lead the
ascetic life. It is interesting that ‘Jack’ points out that his apartment was
filled with condiments, but no food. There was no substance in his palace, it
just flavored life to make the suffering harder to see. He is now completely devoted to finding a
cure. He is ejected from his comfort
zone, into the world of the suffering.
For ‘Jack’ it is now enlightenment or bust.
[5] When ‘Jack’ moves in with Tyler he has no
possessions and no ties to his previous life, save his job, which he later
abandons. In meeting with Tyler he learns his teachings on life and
enlightenment; “the things you own end up owning you”. They have their first fight and begin their
meditation into truth, living with Tyler in a dilapidated house, wearing dirty
clothes, losing teeth and blood due to fighting. All are symbolic of entering
the life of asceticism. The punishment
of one’s body reminds one that life is suffering and keeps one’s mind focused
on the goal to transcend the Dukkha being experienced. Fight Club is not about winning or losing,
and it is not about words, it is about the experience of living in the present.
[6] ‘Jack’ first met Tyler on an airplane
seated next to and in charge of the emergency exit door, representative of the
way the Dharma controls the ‘exit door’ to Samsara. It is interesting that Tyler sells soap, used
for purifying and cleansing, just as the Dharma cleanses away the impurities
that hold one in Samsara. The soap itself is a symbol of non-duality in that it
is made processed from lipo-suctioned fat of wealthy women (profane), that they
pay to have removed, which is then sold back to them as high priced designer
soap (sacred). What is in one form
detested is highly valued in another. This expresses the oneness and
interconnectedness of the world. Before
meeting Tyler, who is actually ‘Jack’s imaginary friend, all the teachings
‘Jack’ received were coming from outside himself. He learned to cry and escape the world in his
cave in support groups taught by others who were attempting to alleviate their
suffering (Dukkha). Now he was searching
on his own, just as Siddhartha had to eventually leave his teachers Alara
Kalama, and Ruddaka Ramaputta, in search of deeper truth he sensed he could
only teach himself.
[7] The teachings of Tyler also reflect the
unsatisfactoriness of life in that all are “working at jobs [they] hate, to buy
shit [they] don’t need”[v], hinting at the Second
Noble Truth (Samudaya) that desire (trsna) causes suffering (samudaya). The character of Tyler strives for
non-duality by persistently mixing the profane with the sacred, slicing single
frames of porn into children’s movies, and urinating in high class meals. He desires to shock his culture into waking
up by rubbing their faces in the reality of life, whether it is labeled ‘good’
or ‘bad’.
[8] Tyler also challenges the social norms by
asking ‘Jack’ to fight him, mixing profane violence with sacred friendship. Although physical violence violates Ahimsa
(non-harming, which is one of the five rules for Right Action in the Eight Fold
Path), fighting could still play a role in a more Tantric path, which allows
one to delve into the physical reality of desire and sensation. Symbolically, fighting could represent the
awareness that life is suffering, and it could also represent the ego, which
naturally pits itself in battle against everything that is ‘not-self’. “In most cases the affirmation of the ego leads
only to disappointment, or else to conflict with other egos just as exclusive …
[one] might end up killing someone”[vi]. Fighting could be used as a meditation
because “encountering sufferings will definitely contribute to the elevation of
[one’s] spiritual practice, provided [one] is able to transform the calamity
and misfortune into the path”[vii]. However, “it’s not that
suffering is important or valuable in itself, but that suffering is our
teacher”[viii]. In fighting, ‘Jack’
realizes that he holds onto the idea of the existence of a separate self and
participates in battle with that which is ‘not self’, making obvious the
workings of everyday unenlightened existence.
[9] Just when ‘Jack’ began to feel that the
extreme asceticism found in the Fight Club was the answer, Marla catches up to
him. Again he begins to experience the
profane and feels that he must intensify his struggle against it, resulting in
an even more extreme practice. Tyler’s
non-duality is shown again by his persistent fornication with Marla, showing
‘Jack’s desire to reconcile himself to his profane side. He does not want to be ashamed of these
aspects of himself, so his ‘Dharma self’ (Tyler) has no problem with Marla and
is very intimate with her.
[10] The presence of Marla escalates ‘Jack’s
search with the chemical burn meditation.
Tyler kisses ‘Jack’s hand, which he then covers with lye, producing a
severe chemical burn. ‘Jack’ tries to
escape the pain using the meditations he learned in the groups, but they are of
little use. Tyler forces him to come
back to the present moment, and not to escape it by hiding away from the world
in a cave. ‘Jack’ is forced to live in the ‘now’, to experience the suffering
that is reality and give up the illusion of control. Tyler teaches that “it is only once we have
lost everything that we are free to do anything”[ix]. It is in giving up desires, control, and the
idea of self, that one can find true freedom from Samsara, which is
Nirvana.
[11] The search is
further intensified with the giving of homework assignments to the members of
the Fight Club, who are to become Project Mayhem, symbolizing the Sangha. As individuals apply for membership they are
put through a vigorous process where they have to wait outside for three days
with only the most basic gear. Also, each individual must carry with them five
hundred dollars of personal cremation money. The applicant is then told that
they will not be accepted and are told to leave, if the applicant stays on the
porch without food, hope or encouragement, then they will be accepted into
Project Mayhem. “This is how Buddhist
temples have tested applicants going back a bah-zillion years, Tyler says”[x]. Upon entrance to Project Mayhem the
applicants’ heads are shaved, making them resemble Buddhist monks. Each member has no name, symbolizing the
attempted realization that there is no self (Anatman). Project Mayhem is involved in many acts of
vandalism, which may appear to be very un-Buddhist when taken literally, but if
one views them symbolically, the parallel can be seen in the effects on each
culture; North American and Indian.
[12] The homework
assignments and missions of Project Mayhem result in vandalism and violence to
person and property in the general populace, as well as to corporations. Project Mayhem attacks the very foundations
of Western culture, by attacking consumerism and capitalism. The Buddha’s Sangha was also involved in the
attack of Indian culture by its rejection of traditional Vedic thought, in its sacrifices,
cast system, and the Vedas themselves, which were the foundation of Indian
culture and all that was assumed to be true about reality. Tyler’s Sangha
parallels this, but in North American culture the lines of credit and
consumerism are the foundational assumptions about life. The credit card
companies of North American culture perpetuate an attachment to past debts and
allow people to accumulate the debts of the future, symbolizing living in
either the future or the past but never the present. This parallels the Vedic culture and a wrong
world-view that accumulates karma, which keeps all within the wheel of Samsara,
and prevents them from realizing the enlightenment of the present. Tyler
vandalizes corporate artwork, chain-owned coffee shops, as well as destroying
the credit companies in an attempt to bring the debt record back to zero. His Sangha challenges people to think beyond
what consumerism tells them, to not listen to the advertisements that are
bombarding them at all times and to reject their illusory debts and
credit. He tries to force the people of
his culture to open their eyes and not to live according to what a bank
machine, or a Brahmin priest states the state of their soul as, but to make
contact with reality.
[13]
Tyler constantly reminds his followers, the Sangha, that they “are not special,
[they] are not beautiful unique snowflakes; [they] are the same decaying
organic matter as everything else”[xi]. This attempts to break the illusion one holds
in striving to be the unique snowflake, and at the same time thirsting to be
better than “decaying matter”. “[They]
are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world”[xii], which associates
people’s existence with a verb rather than a noun similar to the old Zen story
that describes people as a wave on the ocean; people are something the universe
is doing. The wave is an action of the
ocean, just as a person is an action of the cosmos. There is no self to desire
for. The realization that everyone is
going to die (Anicca) is perpetually shoved in the faces of all that are in the
presence of Tyler. “In a long enough
time line, the survival rate of everyone drops to zero”[xiii], which is why Tyler
orders his followers to carry five hundred dollars with them for their personal
burial money. It is just another reminder of their mortality. The viewer is also reminded of the
impermanence (Anicca) of beauty as ‘Jack’ beats a “beautiful” young blond man,
who had gained Tyler’s affection, to a bloody pulp. Tyler and ‘Jack’ being the
same person, remind all who look-on not to thirst for Tyler’s affection, for it
is fleeting.
[14] Another example of the intensified search
for truth occurs when Tyler is driving a car while arguing with ‘Jack’. Tyler turns the car into oncoming traffic,
while ‘Jack’ protests in his desire to continue living. As Tyler lets go of the
steering wheel ‘Jack’ grabs onto it in an attempt to control his life. Tyler then screams at him to “let go”[xiv], symbolizing the letting
go of desires and illusory control over one’s life. If he could only “let go” of these desires, then
he could be free (Nirvana). This event
is characteristic of the symbolic in-your-face intense meditation experiences
throughout this film.
[15] Despite these lessons, ‘Jack’ still
struggles to reconcile his ideal self (Tyler) with his profane self (Marla) and
begins to feel that Project Mayhem is going too far. As he thinks that the path is becoming too
ascetic, Tyler goes beyond his reach and ‘Jack’ searches for him, trying to
understand who it is that he wants to become.
Just as Siddhartha the ascetic had to seek a new self upon hearing a
musician speaking about the string that breaks because it is too tight, while
not playing when too loose. Upon hearing
this Siddhartha’s goal was no longer that of an ascetic, and he had to find the
placement for his new self between the ascetic and the prince, some where on
the Middle Path. Tyler eventually
appears again to ‘Jack’ but with his head shaved, symbolizing that ‘Jack’ now
views his ideal self differently. They
begin to fight, which is really ‘Jack’ fighting himself symbolizing the
struggle to gain control over one’s mind, described as “a battle between the
opposing forces of delusion and bodhi”[xv].
[16] Tyler’s
fornication with Marla is evidence of ‘Jack’s desire to have reconciliation
with the things he detests. Eventually, reconciliation is accomplished when he
discovers that Tyler only exists in his mind; that Tyler is a projection of his
desire to be something more than he is.
Tyler’s existence creates karma that attaches ‘Jack’ to the future self he
wants to be, and reminds him that he is not as ‘perfect’ as Tyler is, so he
must continue to strive towards an unrealistic goal. ‘Jack’ is continually
striving for Tyler while evading Marla. However, Marla exists whereas Tyler
does not. In letting go of Tyler he can
embrace Marla, accepting things as they are, for even in rejecting something
one is holding on to the rejection. This is similar to the Buddha’s complete
acceptance of the truth. “Since the Dharma has no abiding form, there should be
no grasping, no rejection"[xvi];
“Zen is choosing to have no preferences”[xvii]. Tyler
represents the Dharma of which the Diamond Sutra warns; “if their minds grasp the Dharma, they will still cling to the notion of
an ego”[xviii]. An old
Japanese proverb states that Zen is like soap; first, you wash with the soap,
then you wash the soap off. Even though
‘Jack’ is taught by Tyler, he must eventually “let go” of him too. Realizing
the non-existence of Tyler he shoots himself and states “my eyes are open”[xix].
This action results in Tyler’s death (who does not exist) as well as the
destruction of all sense of ‘self’ and delusion, destroying all longing he had
to be someone he was not spurring acceptance for all that he detests and was
previously driven from (Marla).
[17] His enlightenment results in the fall of
the foundational structure supporting society that retards people’s ability to
realize Truth. As the Vedic culture
falls under Buddha’s awakening, so the credit companies and western consumerism
fall under ‘Jack’s’ awakening. The movie
Fight Club presents a symbolic
journey of what enlightenment would be like in the western world, rather than
in the fantastical ancient East, which is so alien and distant to those in the
modern West. This movie brings enlightenment to the front door of all who watch
it in the West, and show the impact of Buddhism to the culture that Siddhartha
was born into.
Bibliography
The Dalai Lama. The Path to Tranquility. Ed. Renuka
Singh. New York: Penquin Group, 1999.
Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. 20th
Century Fox. 2000.
Mitchell, Donald. Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist
Experience. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. New York: Henry Holt and
Company, LLC, 1996.
Smith, Jean. Ed. 365 Zen: Daily Readings. New York:
Harper Collins, 1999.
[i] David
Fincher
[ii] David
Fincher
[iii] David
Fincher
[iv] David
Fincher
[v] David
Fincher
[vi] The
Dalai Lama, p.384
[vii] The
Dalai Lama, p.164
[viii]
Charlotte Joko Beck, 365 Zen. p.290
[ix] David
Fincher
[x] Chuck
Palahniuk, p.129
[xi] David
Fincher
[xii] David
Fincher
[xiii] David
Fincher
[xiv] David
Fincher
[xv] Philip
Kapleau, 365 Zen. p.173
[xvi]
Sheng-Yen, 356 Zen. p.94
[xvii]
Timothy Freke, 365 Zen. p.313
[xviii] The
Diamond Sutra, 365 Zen. p.312
[xix] David
Fincher
Great article which is almost confusing when I see that you are working in a church. I'd be interested in talking with you.
ReplyDeletethank you very much for reading it. It was written when I was doing my religious studies degree. I focused on Buddhism quite a bit. I'd be happy to speak with you :)
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